


Wayfinding

by glorious_clio



Category: The Lady Astronaut Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Genre: Climate Change, Family Drama, Gen, early adulthood angst, i'm putting a lot of feelings in here so i don't have to deal with them personally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26988301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_clio/pseuds/glorious_clio
Summary: Rachel Wexler isn’t a troubled teen any longer, her parents can no longer threaten her with boarding school. However when she still can’t live up to their rules, she finds herself shipped off to her Astronaut Aunt instead. But the last thing she needs is another lecture.Luckily, Elma York’s lecturing days are behind her.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Wayfinding

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to diebrarian for looking this over, even though she doesn't go here.

I didn’t know that the Lady Astronaut could cook. Or bake. And well, too. A regular homemaker that could shame a Betty Crocker ad. 

I sat on her couch staring at a perfect piece of pound cake on my plate, feeling (as usual) hopelessly inadequate. I took a bite that was too large to be considered ladylike, as if finishing it will hurry the evening along, hurry the week along. 

“It’s a family recipe, Rachel. Maybe I can teach you, while you’re here.” Aunt Elma caught my mother’s eye, then took a bite. 

Silence fell again. There wasn’t a clock to tick the awkward seconds by, just the metronome of my own thoughts. 

I know what I should have said. Something like, “Gosh, Aunt Elma, that would be keen,” like the girl on the Mr. Wizard show with her soda pop voice. Fake sweet and bubbly. 

Instead I said, “I can’t even boil an egg. They didn’t teach us to cook at Happy Valley.” 

Doris choked a little on her coffee, and I hoped a little on guilt. 

Aunt Elma flashed a Hollywood Smile. “Well. We’ll see about brushing up on your skills.”

Wonderful. I couldn’t wait for a fresh volley of criticism.

Uncle Nathaniel was training for his Mars mission somewhere out of state. I wasn’t listening that carefully, and I doubt my mother really understood anyway. Not much more was said that night, anyway. And neither of them talked about why we were there on her couch.

All I knew is my parents — once again — didn’t know what to do with me. Since I’m _not_ starting college this fall, maybe a weeklong visit to my former-WASP current Astronette Aunt will finally Cure What Ails Me. 

I guessed it beat a week of waitressing shifts, although if Aunt Elma made good on her promise, I’d still go back to my parents’ house smelling like food. 

Elma was tired, so Doris suggested an early night, although we were two hours behind and not feeling remotely sleepy yet. And despite a square off of politeness, Elma won — she’d sleep on the couch, Doris and me on her bed for the night. I’d kept my mouth shut. I didn’t really want to share with Doris, but I didn’t want to sleep on the floor either. 

We lay there in silence until eventually Doris drifted off to sleep. Apparently she was used to leaving me places. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It was still gray and muzzy when I started to wake up Tuesday morning. Doris’ flight was early, although the alarm clock wasn’t nearly as painful for Elma as for her California guests. It had been decided last night I didn’t have to see Doris off at the airport. She tried to give Elma an out, but my aunt had been raised in the South and insisted upon accompanying her sister-in-law in the taxi. Aunt Elma flew rockets; it seemed incredible that she didn’t own something as pedestrian as a car. 

Despite the early morning activity, I was disconnected from the flurry, and fell in and out of sleep as Doris woke, showered, packed her few things. I didn’t say anything, didn’t even open my eyes to betray my wakefulness. I didn’t really have anything to say to her. Well, nothing kind. No message for Hershel, or dear brother Thomas. Anyway, I’d see them all in a week, which would fly by. Much shorter than months of boarding school. 

In my sudden rage, I flopped over and buried deeper into the bedding.

Doris stepped closer, softly. I could feel her eyes on me, hear her breath. 

I didn’t move, willing myself to continue breathing deeply and slowly. Nothing could have prepared me for Doris’ hand resting gently in my curly hair. A whispered blessing. And then the taxi arrived and they were gone. 

I turned slowly back over, pressing my mother’s blessing into the pillow underneath me. 

I didn’t really have words for what I was feeling, but suddenly the apartment was too quiet, with not even a clock to mark the time as it fled. I launched out of bed to the living room, going immediately to the radio and messing with the dial until I found a rock’n’roll station. Brian Wilson’s voice calmed me, soothed me as he sang of surfing on my familiar ocean. Rumor had it that the Wilsons were terrible to their kids, too. The thought made me feel sour. 

Aunt Elma had folded last night’s bedding with military crispness and discipline, but it was the work of a moment to unfold it again and cocoon myself next to the radio. I let myself slip into the next song, and the next, floating away on predictable chord progressions and familiar rhythms....

“Oh, you’re awake,” Elma said, sometime later. I’d slipped on the edge of sleep again, and the clatter of her keys on the console table startled me. 

“I guess.” I sat up, rubbing my eyes. A cheerful commercial for a local dentist was playing when I leaned over to switch the radio off. “How was my mother?”

“She’s fine. She’s worried about you.”

So she said. The silence was long before I broke it. “I, um. Suppose she told you why I’ve been banished.”

“You haven’t been banished. And yes, she told me.”

I frowned. She’d probably want to lecture me about it. That’s why I was sent to Happy Valley, after all, for some very expensive lectures. And now that I graduated, who better to lecture me than Doctor Astronette. 

But she turned around and headed for the kitchen. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

I shook my head before remembering she couldn’t see me. “No.”

I heard her take out a pan and the running of water from the tap. The fridge opened and closed, the burner clicked as she turned on the gas.

I slowly followed her in, tugging the edges of my pajama tops. 

She had a pan of water heating. 

Not looking at me, she added some baking soda to it, without measuring. “This is to make the eggs easier to peel.” 

“We’re boiling eggs?”

She turned to smile kindly. A real smile, not the one I knew from Mr. Wizard. “It’s only a place to start.” 

I watched as she soft boiled the eggs, which was as easy as waiting for the water to boil, adding the eggs, and setting a timer. 

She laid the table while I made toast, which I could just about manage without burning. She didn’t watch my every move, making me nervous under judgmental eyes. Elma reheated some coffee that she’d made for my mother earlier, but I don’t like coffee so I was given milk instead. 

“If it’s not too expensive, maybe we can pick up some orange juice today,” Elma said mildly. I guess it made sense that they didn’t have any out here in the middle of the country, but I missed it keenly at breakfast. At least we’d had it at boarding school. Still, the eggs were perfectly soft boiled, and there was butter for the toast. 

Elma went for a run after breakfast, she said she needed to keep her exercise regime going. Not to keep her figure, but for Mars. Everything for Mars. She didn’t look at me when she said it, and I could feel her skirting the topic, the lecture she was no doubt shaping in her mind.

Whatever. I did the dishes while she was gone. I don’t always want to say what’s expected, but I know how to be a good guest. 

The rest of the day was spent doing errands in Kansas City, and she did in fact splurge on some orange juice for me. I saw a lot of the city on the bus, even Black neighborhoods that my mother would be deeply uncomfortable visiting. It didn’t surprise me that my Aunt had business there, I guess. And I was on my best behavior whenever we met her coworkers and friends. Or rather, I didn’t say much and smiled a lot. It amounted to the same thing.

“We’re going to the airfield later,” Aunt Elma told a woman named Kam. She’d been the medic on their Mars trip. The medic who hadn’t died. 

“We are?” I was surprised. This was the first I had heard of this plan. I had just gotten off a plane.

“Are the Ninety Nines meeting?” Kam asked politely. 

“Not usually on Tuesday nights, but I have to treat my niece to the Cessna.” 

They tried to talk about Earthbound things, and then Kam had Elma step into another room to talk about post-Mars things. I didn’t know. I glanced around the apartment that Kam confessed she rented furnished. Like my aunt, she didn’t have many personal effects. I thought of my childhood bedroom in California, full of eighteen years of stuff. 

I could never fit it all in a rocket. Although I probably wouldn’t try that hard. I wouldn’t even want to bring most of it with me. It certainly didn’t come with me to Happy Valley. What did one take to Mars? 

But the real question was: what did one leave behind? 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“You know, you’re supposed to save the treats for the end of the trip,” I said in the back of the taxi. Night had fallen properly, and the city looked different. I was lost blocks from her apartment. “So I’m on my best behavior the whole time.”

“You’ll have to forgive me,” Elma said. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about raising children. Would you prefer not to go flying tonight?” 

I paused, unsure. I suppose we could have turned around but I would have been embarrassed to ask. The driver definitely recognized her, and he was absolutely listening. “I’ve only ever flown between here and home. Never for a treat. And not at night.” Most domestic flights were in the day. I’d also never been in a plane that wasn’t a PanAm. 

She smiled. “Lots of firsts, then.” She leaned over and tightened the scarf she’d wrapped around my neck. “I have a closed cockpit, but it’s not terribly warm up there.” 

Elma warned me of this back at her place, it felt like she was filling up as much as air as possible so the cabbie wouldn’t interrupt. I was bundled in some of her clothes and a pair of her boots with some of Nathaniel’s thickest socks. 

It wasn’t a long drive to the airport, and I followed Elma to the hangar, helped her push the plane out closer to the runway. She went through her preflight checks before settling me in the seat with a warning not to touch anything. There was someone there, an attendant? He didn’t seem surprised to see the Lady Astronaut and her Cessna at 9:30pm on a Tuesday night. He took absolutely no notice of me. 

I watched as she radioed the tower, did some weird tests. Clearly both she and the tower were satisfied with everything. 

I waited quietly while they talked about wind direction, and then finally when he gave her clearance, she said, “Sorry this takes so long. Slow is fast.”

I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t even know that this was slow. Or maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t know _anything_ about any of the dials and knobs and things in front of her. About the words she traded back and forth over her radio. 

“It’s fine. Thank you for taking me.” 

She smiled at me. “I haven’t, yet.”

I smiled back. Like anything could stop her. 

“Right, hold tight. We’re going up!” 

She didn’t waste any more time, taxiing down the runway and we went into the smoothest liftoff I’ve ever experienced. I supposed all the really good pilots went into the space program. I was pressed back into my seat, and didn’t attempt anything close to conversation over the engine. Planes were so loud, even small ones. 

We did, indeed, go up. And up, and up, and up. And then we were going through the clouds. Above the clouds. 

And I saw them — the stars. They had to be stars. Lights in the sky that I’m told are there. That you can sometimes see in Hawai’i, or along the equator. For some reason, I hadn’t expected there to be a point to this trip, other than Elma showing off.

“I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know.” And I wept at their beauty. 

Elma didn’t say anything, she let me cry. There was no shame in it, nothing was said to suggest she was trying to monitor my reaction, my feelings. I was just... allowed to get snot all over the scarf she lent me. I’d have to wash it for her. 

Eventually, she brought me back to Earth, and after we prepped her plane for the hangar or went through post flight checklists or whatever, she took my hand and kissed me solemnly on the forehead. The man in the hangar signed the Cessna back in without saying anything about my tearstained face. 

While we waited for another cab, I pulled out a cigarette from my purse and we smoked it. 

“I don’t know why I was crying.” I took another shaky drag of the cigarette. She was letting me smoke most of it. I’m sure she didn’t smoke at all, you probably couldn’t in rocket ships. But she was gracious when I offered it. 

“You might figure it out, you might not. But you’re not the only one in the world to cry about them.” 

“Are there really such things as shooting stars?” I passed her the very last of the cigarette. 

“Yes, meteors. True meteors. Only they’re not stars at all, just rocks and dust that burn up in our atmosphere. Not like the meteorite that caused this mess.” She took one last drag, then dropped it in the dirt, carefully crushing it with her boot. “People used to wish on them.” 

The taxi arrived then, its headlights startled me as they swept across us. 

Elma held the door open for me, and we went back to her apartment. 

For the first time, I _hoped_ she’d lecture me, so I could put up my defense mechanisms. Anything was better than schoolgirl sobbing at stars. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Wednesday began much the same way. Aunt Elma puttered around quietly until I woke up on her couch, and we listened to the radio through breakfast. She went for a run while I washed the dishes, and the scarf she lent the night before. 

I wasn’t spying or anything, but I noticed she showered like a Californian; but then astronauts probably knew that water was a finite resource. When she finished, she wrapped her damp hair in a kerchief and we caught the bus to the IAC. 

“Officially I’m still on leave, but we’re still being debriefed and monitored,” she told me as she set up my visitor’s pass at the security desk. “And I get to send messages to Nathaniel while he’s in simulation training.”

I was briefly worried that the guard wouldn’t let me in, that I’d have to sit on a rock hard chair while she went about her space business, but after a few whispered words, the Lady Astronaut was allowed to tow me around. 

She settled me in Nathaniel’s office for a brief meeting that I didn’t have clearance for, and I tried to read a science magazine while she was getting a check up. Then there was an interview with a reporter from a newspaper that also included the other mission computer, Heidi Voegeli. 

I could tell the reporter had no idea what she and my aunt’s job in space actually was, and he wanted to mostly talk about the next mission, where my aunt and uncle would be together in space. I very much wanted to cover my eyes every time he waggled his eyebrows, every time Elma blushed. Heidi looked bored. It was a good thing there wasn’t a photographer. He asked me for a quote, but Elma fluttered her eyelashes and demurred on my behalf. 

Then she showed me the “sights” that the IAC had to offer: the mission control room, with a jar of peanuts (a tradition they pulled from JPL, she said, as if Thomas might have mentioned it to me). The clean lab where they were building and testing new technology for space. The sewing room where they made the weird gold blankets and every individual suit for EVAs. The “Mars Yard” where they ran wheels over a bunch of rocks to test them. Elma introduced me to Leonard Flannery and Graeham Stewman, the geologists from the Mars mission. 

I’d been here before. I’ve seen this all before. Herschel came to every launch; we all did. All of us were at her last mission launch before she went to the moon, before she went to Mars. This level of a tour was not exactly necessary. 

But there were changes, and security was tighter. No one mentioned Earth First. 

The old cafeteria, which was a triage spot the day of the explosion, was now a memorial. Elma didn’t make me enter. I didn’t cry, though. My defenses came up instead, my shoulders crept up to my ears. Elma didn’t mention it. We went to the new cafeteria for lunch. 

I didn’t see much more of the campus, as we went home after. I wanted to listen to a program I’d heard advertised on the radio, and Elma had to do some housework, she said. 

And then we cooked dinner, pure southern comfort food, she said. Biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, and a peach pie. 

The peaches were canned, but everything else was fresh, and it was almost fun. I wouldn’t have been able to reproduce it; she cooked like my mother, without recipes. How could I possibly be expected to learn like this? But everything was delicious, of course. 

I did the dishes, Elma was balancing her cheque book when the telephone rang. I ignored it at first. She was chatting pleasantly about what we had done the past few days, how well things were going. 

I started drying the silverware when I heard, “Well, why don’t you ask her yourself?” 

I set things down and came out to the living room. 

“It’s your mother, Rachel.” 

I narrowed my eyes, felt my lips purse. She pretended not to notice as she handed me the receiver. Elma then had the good grace to step into the kitchen where she picked up where I left off.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Rachel. It sounds like you’re being feted. Are you minding yourself?”

“I’m doing quite well. Aunt Elma has been very generous.” I didn’t quite answer her question and we both knew it. She sucked at her teeth, I could hear it over the phone. It’s an odd nervous habit she had.

I waited. The best thing to do was to let her struggle for words to say. 

But she found them, daggers really. “I hope returning to IAC wasn’t too much of an ordeal for you.” The disdain for me that I heard in her voice was deafening. The blessing she left in my hair seemed to tingle. 

“I... it was fine. Everyone was kind.” It’s not like I was on a wanted poster or something. “Is there something you needed, _mother_? I don’t have any Happy Valley classes to talk about, you see.”

“Really, Rachel. Show a little gratitude.” 

“I’m being as gracious as I know how. Now give my love to Father and Thomas, and I daresay I’ll see you soon.” 

It was all I could do not to slam the phone on the cradle, but I managed it. 

Elma poked her head out of the kitchen, worry lines furrowed on her forehead. 

“All well at home?”

I shrugged. 

She approached me, gently resting her hand on my arm. “Oh sweetheart, I didn’t know you’d be that upset, after talking to her.” 

“I can’t be the only person with mommy issues.” 

“I suppose not,” she allowed. She bit her lip. 

“Did you?” I asked. I turned to her, and she slid her hand off my arm again. 

She smiled sadly. “It’s... complicated by a lot of grief. She expected a lot of me. And that made things hard for me sometimes. But she was also very easy to love.”

“And she didn’t ship you off to boarding school after some youthful indiscretions.” 

I flopped onto the couch and turned on the radio again. She stood by the phone arms crossed over her chest as pop music rolled over us. The furrows on her forehead deepened. 

“I, uh. Talk to someone about my feelings sometimes. A therapist. I actually have an appointment tomorrow, if you’d like to join me? Maybe for the first half?”

“And talk to her? About Happy Valley?”

She collapsed next to me on the couch. “Well, you can listen to me, if you want. You can say as much or as little as you want. Or you can tell me about Happy Valley.” 

“Do you really want to hear my tale of woe?”

To her credit, she nodded. “Whatever you want to say. I won’t tell your mother.”

I sighed. “I mean. It was awful. I was away from everything I knew. I was the new kid, it was my sophomore year. I didn’t really make friends. And you know. They sent me away. It was co-ed, because it was the only non-Catholic boarding school they could find, but I was still the only Jewish person there. All the holidays were... I mean, you know. We get Christmas off instead of Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. It felt like exile, and they did it again this week.” 

“Yes, I think you, my therapist, and I might have some things to talk about.”

She was struggling, being generous again. I decided to let her off easy. “Well. If it’s important to you, I’ll come.”

“Oh, Rachel. It’s important to me because _you’re_ important to me.”

I wished I could believe her, but two days of towing me around Kansas City was nothing when she’d spent three years on a Mars mission, when she went running every morning in anticipation of her return. 

“I think I’ll take a shower.” I turned off the radio, and she released me for the night. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I learned that the Lady Astronaut talked to a very nice woman named Gabriella. She greeted us warmly, and I was introduced as, “Rachel, my niece.” There were no other modifiers, and she gave no indication that Elma had ever said a word against me. I’m sure this was a lie. 

Gabriella had us settle on a black leather couch. There were blankets that we could tuck ourselves into. “I know it doesn’t get cold anymore, but sometimes the air conditioning is too high, so please help yourself to anything that makes you comfortable, Rachel.” 

Her entire office was comfortable. Soft buttery yellows and silver grays, big windows with sheer curtains that filtered the light, making everything glow. The carpet was thick and my feet wanted to sink into it. 

Gabriella tucked herself into a yellow armchair with her notebook, and we were offered water or tea, which was brought by a kind looking assistant. 

There were two candles, lemon and honey, burning on the coffee table and a bowl of candies. The room smelled sweet. 

I selected a chocolate from the dish while Gabriella and Elma exchanged pleasantries and then they got down to it. 

Any trace of Elma’s public persona was gone. She talked candidly about missing Nathaniel, both now and when she was on her mission to Mars. And then she said, “I really wish he could be here now, with Rachel and me. I know he’d be... wonderful, honestly.”

I wasn’t sure if I should respond to that, so I settled a chenille blanket across my lap so that I could toy with the fringe. It’s not like I knew Nathaniel particularly well. 

“I still sometimes feel guilty — that he’ll never be a father,” Elma continued. 

I was rather shocked by this, but they didn’t say anything to me. They continued talking about the choices Elma and Nathaniel had made as a couple not to have children.

Silence fell again, and I said to my aunt, “I guess I never thought of motherhood as something you could opt out of.”

Gabriella set her pen and notebook down on the wide arm of her chair. 

“Do you want to say more, dear?”

Elma reached out and squeezed my hand. 

“Not really.” I pushed the blanket off my lap and stood up. I was using my get out of jail free card, aunt Elma had only invited me to the first half of her session. “Thank you, Aunt Elma. I... think I’ll go explore, if you don’t mind?”

Elma nodded. “Why don’t you meet me at the ice cream shop on the corner. We passed it earlier. Maybe in an hour?”

“Yeah, I mean yes. See you there.” I turned. “Thank you for your time, Gabriella.” 

“You’re very welcome, Rachel. Come back any time.”

I hurried out of the sunny room. Her assistant nodded at me as I left the suite, traveled down the elevator shaft and out into the humidity of a Kansas day. 

Gabriella’s office was on a busy street, there was a good deal of traffic even for a Thursday. There were lots of fashionable little shops. I had a little money in my pocket, perhaps I could buy a souvenir. 

Or maybe a hostess gift.

The first shop was a clothing store, and as soon as I entered, I knew I made a mistake. Everything in there was very conservatively styled, a very pre-meteorite old school boxy style. I’d need a girdle for about 80% of the bodices. I pretended to look at a few things, but the price tags were much bigger than I could afford. The assistants didn’t even bother talking to me. 

I fled next door to a decor shop that was filled with macrame art. 

And herein lay the problem with getting my aunt a hostess gift: she was barely ever home. What did she need with a rope plant hanger, really? I couldn’t even picture the tasseled thing in her small apartment, let alone a rocket. Why bother giving her something she’d just leave behind without a second thought? And if I was buying something for myself... what did I want with any of this? I didn’t like tassels. 

The next shop was a kitchen supply store, and while she was teaching me to cook, I had no clue what to look for. But the copper pots were cheerful, and I hadn’t realized how heavy a cast iron pan could be. I toyed with a garlic press that was purple, but it didn’t feel right. I once again left empty handed. 

The next option was a toy store. I hadn’t played with toys in ages. 

I went in anyway. 

The shop was everything you could want from a toy shop - bright, colorful, smelling of sugar. The toys were ordered by activities, by outside or inside, dress up or careers, full of balls and books and babydolls. There was no boy section or girl section, just a delightful mix of everything a child could want, puzzles and paint supplies and paper airplane kits.

I laughed over a menagerie of animals in all colors. They were soft to the touch, and some of them talked when I squeezed them. My fingers trailed over spines of books, some of which I remembered reading as a girl, but most were newer and unfamiliar to me. I tested the handles of several jump ropes, seeing how they felt in my hand. There wasn’t enough room in that corner for me to test them out, though a purple handled one caught my eye. 

I turned a corner, and spotted a cherry on top of the offerings: an entire row of everything an aspiring astronaut could wish for. 

There were helmets and flimsy, polyester space suits. There were chemistry sets, and promises of moon rocks. I let my fingers play over them as I recalled meeting Leonard Flannery and Graeham Stewman. I found toy rockets and planetary mobiles for baby cribs. There were packets of freeze dried “astronaut ice cream” in pouches with enticing flavors, and next to it, a basket full of Tang packages. I wasn’t convinced by these, and Tang had nothing on real Orange Juice with plenty of pulp, but it made my smile all the same. 

Near books about the solar system, I found what I think I must have been searching for: 

“Glow in the Dark Stars™!”

“Recreate the constellations on your ceiling!”

“Made with Phosphorescent Paint, used by the IAC!”

I pulled a bag off the hook and flipped it over to read the back. 

“Our studies have shown that our children can’t remember seeing the stars, and for children born after the meteor, have no concept of what the moon looked like. These things are relegated to fairytales along with dragons and unicorns — until now! Take home a pack of Glow in the Dark Stars™ and introduce their majesty to your children right on their bedroom ceiling.

“The kit includes one moon (with dots marking our lunar habitats!), and a wide variety of stars to create the milky way, and a map to recreate some of the constellations that we used to see. 

“Phosphorescent Paint is perfectly safe, and developed by engineers at the IAC to replace radium on their dials. Safe for space, safe for junior!”

Smiling, I brought the stars to the register. I refused a bag and tucked it into my purse. 

And not a moment too soon, checking the clock behind the register. I had to hurry down the street to the ice cream parlor, where I was treated to a hot fudge sundae. We didn’t talk about the therapy session, or mothers, or anything other than the songs that were playing on the radio. Aunt Elma had missed three years of music and unlike my parents, listened to the songs with a sense of curiosity. 

I could feel my guard, which had been slipping all week, fall away. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, exactly. But I knew somehow that if she hadn’t lectured me by now, she wouldn’t. She was just... living by example. 

And what better example for humanity than IAC’s best and brightest. 

I was starting to understand why so many people looked up to them, maybe get why there might be an entire display in a toyshop for everyone who had been so kind to me this week. 

I was feeling... not guilty exactly, and not ashamed exactly, of the road that brought me here. Maybe Gabriella would know why I cried in the Cessna, why I had a bag of plastic stars in my purse. I ate the last of the sundae, and then we went to the grocery store again. Elma even bought me another bottle of orange juice. Our basket was very heavy when the Amish man finally tallied up our purchases. 

“We have a lot of cooking to do before sunset tomorrow,” the astronette said, linking my arm with hers and pulling me on the bus. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The Lady Astronaut baked her own challah. 

But then, of course she did. We’ve made almost every meal thus far. After her run and a quick shower, we were back in her small kitchen. Elma showed me how to combine the ingredients, roll out the dough, and tuck it into a covered bowl to rise. 

“How faithfully do you keep Shabbat?” I wiped the leftover flour off the counter with the rag she handed me. 

“Hmmm. It depends. Nathaniel and I try to observe it here. I mean. On the moon, on the way to Mars, it’s harder.” She paused, shook her head, as if shaking a thought or a memory away. “What about you? I mean....”

“I usually have to work,” I admitted. “A lot of people don’t like it, but. I’m a waitress. It’s not like I can take every Friday night and all of Saturday off.” 

She nodded. “I absolutely understand that.”

“And at _Happy Valley_ ,” even now, I seeth through the name of my old school, “that’s the day we were forced into activities and things. It’s not a Christian school, but Sunday was still their day of rest.”

Elma nods. “Yeah. I... you don’t have a unique experience there, Rachel.” 

I laughed. “Can you even light candles on the moon?”

“Oh, goodness, no. Fire in space — bad.” She shuddered at the thought. “But challah... everyone loves challah. I’ll even let you braid it, no doubt Happy Valley taught you something.”

“Well, it wasn’t in the curriculum, but I lived in a girls dorm.”

She laughed and gently tugged a lock of my hair. 

“C’mon. Let’s go to the library today, you might want a book or something, since I might not let you turn on the radio tomorrow.”

I rolled my eyes good naturedly, but washed the rest of the flour off my hands and grabbed my purse. 

I was now familiar with the walk to the bus stop, and she actually lived quite close to the public library. There was so much humidity that I could have swam there. But the air conditioning in the lobby was downright brisk. 

Elma and I separated, and I wandered between book displays while she made a beeline to the fiction section for some science fiction. I didn’t really know what I wanted to read, so instead I made my way, exploring instead. 

In the children’s area, there was a librarian on a colorful stool reading a book to a small group of kids sitting in a giant clump. I eased into the room, and smiled when I realized they were reading a picture book, a Cinderella adaptation set on Mars. At the end, there was a back and forth between the kids and the librarian, while she asked them about the story. Then she pulled another book from the pile. “Our final book of the day, children, is about stars. Who can tell me what a star is?” 

Some kids raised their hands, some answers even sounded right for such little kids. I reached into my purse and touched the cellophane bag that was there. 

And then the librarian began reading, “A is for the Andromeda Constellation, which shines in the fall. B is for Betelgeuse, the brightest of all....” 

And so on. 

This seemed to be a popular one, as the kids shout out the names of their favorite stars. It was pretty charming, but I was a little alarmed that these kids knew a lot more about our galaxy than I did. 

I backed away from the cluster on the rug and looked for something a little closer to home. 

I was trailing my fingers across the spines of chapter books, and stopped on “The Secret Garden.” I thought about the plants growing outside of Elma’s windows and gently prised the book from the others on the shelf, packed in very tightly. 

Without knowing much about the book, I headed back down to the lobby to meet Elma. She barely glanced at what I was checking out while handing the person at the desk her library card. Evidently Elma is a regular patron, or the Kansas City library is accustomed to lots of astronauts, because she didn’t even bat an eye as she stamped our books out to us, due back in two weeks time. 

Elma unfurled a tote bag from her purse and tossed in our combined three books before we found another bus stop to head back home to the challah. 

She instructed me on punching it down and getting ready for a second prove as she flipped through the mail, sorting it into bills, correspondence, other things she’d need to follow up on, as well as the junk mail that she recycled immediately. I placed the towel over the bowl and glanced over at the fridge where she slapped a magnet over an official letter, then headed out to her desk in the living room. 

I washed my hands, dried them, and snooped at the letter. 

Court summons, for Uncle Nathaniel. 

I read a little further and realization didn’t so much dawn on me as much as it crystallized in the pit of my stomach. He was to be a star witness in US vs Frye, Lynn, and Richter. Right. The three that worked on the inside to bring down the space program. While my aunt was on her way to Mars, while her friends were on the moon. 

While Uncle Nathaniel was stuck on Earth. 

I wasn’t sure if she had wanted to goad me, by placing the summons so conspicuously in my eyeline and then leaving the room. 

If it was my parents, definitely. But she hadn’t even dropped an ugly hint. 

I sighed, and then did the dishes that had been soaking. 

“Oh, thank you, Rachel,” Elma said on her return to the kitchen. “We’ll start the chicken when you’re finished here, and then the challah should be about ready to braid and bake.”

She preheated the oven and the dishes drip dried while she showed me how to spread the chicken out on the baking sheet, smothering the skin with olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper. She slid it into the oven and I separated the dough into six parts. 

“I normally do a three strand braid,” Elma said as she watched my preparations. 

“Trust me, this should be even easier than braiding hair.” 

She smirked. “Okay, I trust you. Make sure you pinch the top of the strands together, and I’ll show you how to tuck the dough at the end. We don’t want to bake any hair ribbons.” 

I worked carefully over the braid, falling into the pattern of it while Elma readied the table with the candles, the wine, and her dishes. It wasn’t a fancy affair. My parents usually ate off their wedding china on Friday nights. But then, Elma didn’t have her wedding china any longer. She certainly didn’t have fancy dishes now. What would be the point?

Everything for her was stasis until she went back to space.

But the candlesticks were simple and nice, and the wine glasses were too. She pulled out a clean dish towel and set it on a large cutting board. “I don’t have a fancy cover,” she told me.

“They didn’t teach us how to make those at Happy Valley.” 

Her laugh rang out and together we tucked the ends of the bread in, and then we finally slid the loaf in the oven. 

I took a shower while she made a side salad that would be good cold the next day, along with the cold chicken. When I came out of the bathroom, my wet hair plaited a simpler braid than I had made in the kitchen, all was ready, and the food looked delicious. 

Elma lit the candles, saying the blessings over them, the wine, the challah (which I was pleased to see, looked beautiful). And then she said a blessing over me, though we both knew I wasn’t a child, a fact she punctuated by pouring me a glass of wine. Nevertheless, I felt the phantom impression of my mother’s hand on the back of my head. 

It was just the two of us. Nathaniel wouldn’t be back until after I left on Monday. 

Our conversation was almost easy, after the past few days together. But my mind kept going back to the kitchen, the summons on the fridge. Elma telling me she trusted me. 

I wanted to believe that. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Saturday dawned bright, but both Elma and I slept in. She didn’t even go for her ordinary run. 

Eventually, though, we got out of bed. Though we each got dressed, it was a lazy sort of morning. I picked at some challah while she drank some cold coffee from the day before. Opening the fridge in her house wasn’t breaking the sabbath, which suited me fine. 

“I break all kinds of these rules in Space, obviously. And if the phone rings, I’m going to answer it. But I really try and rest when I’m home.”

So that’s what we did. This whole week felt like a pause button, so I felt a little strange that we weren’t getting on the bus today. 

I curled up reading “The Secret Garden,” only to find it was not what I had expected. There’s a garden in it, but mostly it’s about parents abandoning their kids, except for one who has a deep connection to nature, or some nonsense. And then, one of the kids, who was previously confined to a wheelchair, just... decided to get better. And it worked. 

I was seething with anger, reading this cloying, Victorian children’s book. 

“You keep sighing — is everything alright over there?” Elma asked from across the room. She peeked up over her book which had a rocket ship on the cover. 

“This is a terrible book. Did you know all you had to do to learn to walk is take deep breaths and think of the magic of the English moors?” I closed the book and dropped it on the floor. “They literally call it _magic_.”

Aunt Elma closed her book as well, and came to sit next to me on the couch. 

“I might have some other books for you to read. Or maybe some magazines.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. 

“It’s fine, it’s probably fine. I just know how it’s going to end — Colin’s father is going to come back from wherever he goes to escape the responsibility of parenting, find his son can miraculously walk, and then they’ll all live happily ever after.”

“What on earth are you reading? It sounds...”

“Terrible?”

“I was going to say dated,” she said generously. 

“I suppose I should be reading books about rocket ships instead?”

“I didn’t say that either.”

And suddenly there was a prickly silence. I could feel us sitting on the cusp of an argument, one I felt we had been building to all week.

“I won’t make you read anything you don’t want to read, do anything you don’t want to do, Rachel.” Aunt Elma’s voice was soft, softer than I could ever remember hearing it. 

“Is this why we haven’t fought about Earth First?” I couldn’t help it, I barreled into it now, wanting the fight. 

She sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I understand why Earth First is—”

“Do you? Do you get that only the best of the best can leave Earth? Which right now looks awfully white and Christian, in case you haven’t noticed. We should be focusing on the planet we have, helping people that are here _right now_ instead of spending all our time trying to get the strongest of us to leave. And it’s a stupid genocide all over again, or natural selection, or eugenics, but in space!”

Elma sat on her couch, absorbing all of this. 

“You aren’t wrong. But the truth, I’m afraid, is more complicated.”

I collapsed into the nest of blankets that I never picked up that morning. 

“I know we’re not wrong,” I said, miserably. 

She rested a hand on my leg. 

“You know the quote from the Talmud. ‘Whoever destroys a single life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world.’ It’s like that. Getting as many people off a dying world, is... sadly. It’s the best we can do. But listen hard, because the scientific advances we’re making are already improving life on Earth. The polio victims on the moon? They’re testing new treatments with them, we’re seeing improvements. It might make improvements here on Earth.”

“You can’t fix Hershel.”

“Darling. I know that. Hershel knows that. But we might learn how to improve the quality of life for anyone with mobility issues. And that’s one example. We can monitor the Earth better from space, holistically. We have an international coalition to help problem solve, something in place to pick up where the U.N. left off. There’s even been talk of the U.S.S.R. joining in soon.”

“But you said it yourself, you understood Earth First, that we had a point.”

“You have several points. But we have to work together. Isn’t it better if you bring your concerns to the people trying to improve things?”

“But protests work, too.”

“Yes, yes they do. But you have to be careful with Earth First. Protests are one thing. You can go to as many protests as you like. I will be inside the IAC, making the same demands.”

“I’m sensing a _but_.”

“But, if Nathaniel had died, there would have been hell to pay. Losing Kenneth Wargin didn’t help your cause. Losing communications with the habitat on the moon, or with my mission, didn’t help.

I sighed, suddenly exhausted. I couldn’t defend an assassination, as much as I hated the thought that Earth’s best would leave us all behind. 

“How about when you go home, we talk every week, and you can bring your concerns to me.”

“I’m not ratting out my friends.” I looked up from the nest of blankets so she could see how serious I felt.

“Of course not. I said _your_ concerns. We can even come up with a code if you want.”

I sat up. “No, no codes. Hershel said they got you into trouble.”

She smiled. “Okay. As long as you trust the phone system. You can tell me anything. You can even ask me anything, but I may not always be able to answer frankly.”

I understood that, I guess. 

“Is this why you didn’t have kids?” I changed tactics. Maybe that was mean. 

“Is what why I didn’t have kids?” She suddenly looked uncomfortable, picking at the blankets on the couch. 

“Because the planet is dying.”

She offered a wry smile. “I suppose that was a contributing factor. And I didn’t want to give up my career as an astronaut. They’d never let me fly again.”

Silence held for a beat, and then she said, “I suppose that sounds selfish...”

“I don’t think it sounds selfish.”

“No?”

“No. Selfish would be trying to do both and neglecting the kid.”

Elma smiled sadly. “You’re very smart.”

“I was shipped off to boarding school. I wouldn’t wish that on any potential cousins.” 

“I think you should get a Gabriella of your own to talk to.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I allowed. Honestly, probably.

I was grateful that she didn’t try and defend Hershel and Doris just then. She could have. But she wasn’t taking sides. Like with Earth First, she looked at the problem and all its overlapping complexities. 

Pretty good for a math person. 

“Look. I can’t save everyone. No one can save everyone. But the new habitats on the Moon and Mars are going to need all kinds of people, all kinds of jobs. Find out what you want to do, and we’ll talk about how to do it in space.”

“And Doris and Hershel?”

She smiled sadly. “I don’t know. But maybe I can give them a ride in the Cessna before I leave.”

“They’d probably like that,” I said after a moment’s pause.

“Would you like to go up again? Maybe tonight after sunset?”

I smiled.

She smiled back. 

I didn’t read the rest of “The Secret Garden.” I didn’t read any of the rocket ship books in the apartment either. Instead I combed out my hair and rebraided it. And I waited for the sun to set. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


On Sunday morning, I boiled some eggs for our breakfast, and while Elma drank her coffee, I pulled the Glow in the Dark Stars™! out of my purse and passed them over to her. 

“I think you should have these. And maybe they’ll be small enough for you and Nathaniel to bring with you.”

I watched a smile spread across her face, one I was now familiar with. No Hollywood smiles between us now. 

“I would be honored. But we have to hang them now, before you leave.” 

So we spent the rest of the morning hanging the stars on her bedroom ceiling. 

“You can sleep in here tonight, so you can see them too.”

“Sure, but can we go flying again tonight?”

Elma laughed. “Of course! And I’m headed to the IAC to send a message to Nathaniel. Maybe you’d like to send him one?”

I thought about the summons on the fridge, and wondered if he knew I’d been protesting with Earth First. And then I wondered if he, like Elma, would see why I was doing it. 

“Yes, that sounds good. Thanks.” 

We chattered on the bus, our conversation was lighter and easier than it had been all week. The security guard at the IAC didn’t give me a second look. The campus was quiet, not a lot of people were working on Sunday, but there were still people around for Elma to wave at, and of course folks in communications. 

We sent our cheerful teletype greetings to Nathaniel, and then turned around and took a long way home. The bus seats were uncomfortable, but Kansas City was now a friend. I appreciated the last look at it on the ground. 

I was better at cooking now, and Elma taught me how to make a pot pie with homemade crust. She wrote the crust recipe down for me, saying, “This recipe has never failed me and works for sweet and savory. I even adapted it for space.”

“Maybe I’ll start a cooking show on Mars,” I joked. 

Aunt Elma laughed a little too loudly at that, but I appreciated it. 

We hurried through our meal and then out to the airfield. The attendant now was used to me, though I was proud to say I didn’t cry last night, and I was fairly sure I wouldn’t cry tonight. 

The stars were friends now too, and they flickered like they were winking. 

“How do they look in space?” I asked over the motor.

“They don’t twinkle,” she said. “And it’s easier to see their different colors. “We used them to navigate our way to Mars. It’s.... They are spectacular,” she admitted. 

As if they weren’t spectacular this side of the atmosphere. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


On Monday morning, Elma dropped me off for my last flight for a while, California or bust. Some nameless man would no doubt be piloting, and if we broke the cloud cover, we wouldn't be seeing the stars, obviously. 

I wondered what the reunion with my parents would be like, if Elma was calling Hershel and Doris now to report on me. Telling them I needed a therapist. They wouldn’t like that, I was sure. 

And my friends. They told me I was a true Earth Firster, that even a trip to Kansas City wouldn’t change me. But of course it had. Still, the Lady Astronaut was sympathetic. I wondered if they would believe me. 

I smiled. I didn’t really care if they did or not. 

It was early in the morning, and I was a bit groggy. But the restaurant in the terminal had orange juice on the menu. The price was obscene, and I was going home where it would be reasonably priced, but I was thirsty. As I was digging my wallet out of my purse, something jabbed me. 

I pulled out a Glow in the Dark Star™!, one that Elma must have smuggled back to me. 

“Miss?”

“Sorry,” I said, passing him the money. He slid the glass and my change back. 

I found a chair in a corner at my gate and let the plastic star sit in my hand. It wasn’t glowing now. But that night on my ceiling, it would. And it would remind me of curling up next to my aunt, dear to me now, and listening to her spin me tales of what life in space was like, telling me how to navigate by them. 

Closing my hand around the five points, I made a wish. 


End file.
